The Bourne Identity

A plush, polished make-over of a hoary Robert Ludlum best-seller, this dispatches Matt Damon's amnesiac CIA operative on an arse-kicking jaunt across Europe in search of a true self hidden amid a swathe of phoney passports and bogus bank accounts. Snapping at his heels are a grungy sidekick (Franka Potente) and a rash of shadowy killers who "want Bourne in a body-bag by sundown". Cue stake-outs, shoot-outs and a tyre-burning cannonball run through the highways and byways of Paris.

None of this, however, can quite disguise the fact that The Bourne Identity is a blockbuster without a point. Despite its good-looking veneer, its breakneck pace, its daisy-chain of expert set-pieces, some crucial logic or motive appears to have been junked along the way. More likely it was never there in the first place. As such, the film stands as a beautiful white elephant, a flagrant waste of time and resources. It's as though director Doug Liman (Go, Swingers) has forked out on the fastest, sleekest, most souped-up sports car that money can buy, only to realise that he has absolutely nowhere to drive it to.